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February 22, 2007

Adobe, minivans, promiscuity (?!)

Heh–if that doesn’t get your parental antennae buzzing, I don’t know what will. ;-) I got a kick out of seeing these characterizations of Adobe, spied by John Dowdell, in a pair of articles:

"In the software world, if Oracle Corp. is the monster truck of corporate acquirers, showily flattening competitors as flash pots explode," writes Olaf de Senerpont Domis, "Adobe Systems Inc. is the humble minivan, patiently trundling from point A to point B." I think there’s some truth in that. Headquartered in unassuming San José (the minivan of cities), Adobe doesn’t do a lot of the chest-thumping I see from other companies–a modesty I’ve always appreciated. And having (grudgingly) swapped a Miata for a minivan during college, I can tell you: respect the van.

"Going forward, the Gartner trio predicts, Adobe will promiscuously embed collaboration features across its product lines," reports Stephen Swoyer. Facilitating collaboration has been a passion of mine for a long time (e.g. getting feedback tools into Photoshop’s Web gallery engine in CS1; embedding Flash in Photoshop CS3), and we’ll keep cranking away, but now it sounds so much more… salacious. ;-)

When the Adobe-Macromedia deal was announced, a designer remarked, "Adobe will make Macromedia grow up, but Macromedia will take Adobe out clubbing." So, we may be rocking a minivan here, but you know there are hydraulics under there…

Comments

Adobe will make Macromedia grow up, but Macromedia will take Adobe out clubbing.

Brilliant :D

Dude-X — 8:12 AM on February 25, 2007

I haven’t really checked this out since the merger, but I know that Macromedia had their product manuals online for their programs. Does Adobe still do this for the former Macromedia programs, AND will they do this for their own native products?[Yes & yes, though on the latter point I don’t know how widely/quickly. –J.]
I think today most people use the online help, or the builtin help for some functions, it is nice however to have the manual online especially when you can’t get to it.